Because of You

by Julie Cannon

  “Some friends came by.” Kelly’s voice was flat.

  “And how was it?”

  “It was a little…tense. They skirted the issues and pretended it hadn’t happened.”

  “That’s to be expected. You know it’s either going to be that way or just the opposite, where they want to know every gory detail. They obviously care about you, Kelly. They just don’t want to say anything to upset you.”

  “Well, they need to say something. I’m pregnant. I’m so god damn skinny it looks like I have a basketball under my shirt. It’s kind of hard to ignore.” Kelly was laughing.

  “And how is baby Ryan?”

  “She doesn’t want to sleep at night either.”

  “She’s getting used to being up in the middle of the night.”

  “I’ve always heard that you’re supposed to get as much sleep as possible before you have a baby because you don’t get any after.”

  “I’ve heard that too.”

  “Well, somebody needs to tell her that, because she didn’t get the memo.”

  It was Barrett’s turn to laugh. “She’s the new generation, Kelly. They don’t do memos. They text, do Instagram, Snap Chat, Kik, and Twitter, and as a last resort, Facebook.”

  “So I should, what, put my phone on my stomach?”

  “That’s an idea.” Barrett heard muffling and scratching sounds on the phone before Kelly spoke again.

  “Okay, go ahead.”

  Kelly had put her on speaker. “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I have the phone on my stomach. Go ahead. Talk to her, because she sure as hell isn’t listening to me.”

  Barrett laughed, enjoying Kelly’s sardonic sense of humor. “Again, she’s preparing you for motherhood. She’s a girl. She’ll never listen to you.”

  “Then if she’s not going to listen to me she needs to listen to Aunt Barrett.”

  Barrett’s pulse skipped several beats. Aunt Barrett?

  “Just talk to her.”

  “Um, hey, baby girl Ryan. This is your Aunt Barrett. I understand that…you’re…um…kicking around in there. You practicing for the soccer team? Maybe football? You know by the time you’re old enough they may be allowing women to play football. I can see the headlines now. Baby girl Ryan, first female quarterback in the NFL, leads her team to a Super Bowl victory. And what does she say directly into the camera after the game-winning touchdown? ‘I’m taking my wonderful mom to Disneyland.’”

  Kelly laughed, and Barrett’s initial unease shifted to the point that she began enjoying herself. She felt like a complete idiot, but grown men, bigger and tougher than her, did the required baby talk. She was just doing it a little early.

  “What if she wants to be a figure skater?” Kelly asked, laughter clearly in her voice.

  “Then she’ll say it on the gold-medal stand at the 2030 Olympics, which will probably be held someplace no one has ever heard of.”

  “And what if she wants to follow in your footsteps?”

  That was something Barrett definitely didn’t expect. Follow in her footsteps? She knew she was tired, but did the honorary Aunt Barrett and the footsteps comment mean that Kelly wanted her to be a part of her baby’s life? Holy crap. She didn’t have any idea what to do with kids. She’d never really been around them.

  “Barrett? Did you fall asleep on me?”

  “I’m still here,” Barrett said over the butterflies in her stomach. “You know if she’s going to follow in my footsteps and be a wildly successful business executive, you need to be sure to give her an appropriate name.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I can’t tell you how many women I’ve met whose name completely contradicts their position or the position they’re trying to get.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “Well, I don’t remember when, but I met this woman, the head of a major organization, who made a jillion dollars a year, had thousands of people working for her, and her name was Bambi Anderson. Can you imagine that on a gold-embossed business card? Can you image what it looks like in a room full of shareholders or the media when her name is flashed across a fifty-foot screen? All you see is Bambi, and like it or not, we all have an idea of what a Bambi is. Now I don’t mean to be judgmental, but come on.”

  “Good point, Kelly replied, her laughter tickling Barrett’s ear. “So what do you suggest?”

  Barrett hesitated a minute. “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. It’s your baby.”

  “Yeah, but you have a different perspective.”

  “Okay, uh, how about Leigh or Dylan? Maybe something like Elliott or Lane. You know, powerful and strong, or even something like—”

  Kelly jumped in. “Barrett Elizabeth Taylor.”

  Barrett didn’t know what to say. How had Kelly learned her middle name? She never disclosed it. She thought her name was powerful and strong? She wouldn’t seriously name her baby after her, would she? Would she? “My mother loved Elizabeth Taylor. Besides, I think that name’s already taken,” she said shakily.

  “Good point,” Kelly replied.

  “And you need to watch out for initials too. You don’t want to name her Ann Suzanne Stevens or Barbara Francis Davis.”

  Kelly laughed and Barrett joined in, feeling a little less rattled. “You have to look ahead and at the practical side of things.”

  They chatted for the next ten minutes or so, sharing stories and laughing at each other’s sense of humor until Kelly asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Getting dressed.”

  “At this hour?”

  “Unless you want me going to the airport in my jammies, it would be a good idea.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Colorado,” Barrett answered vaguely.

  “Where in Colorado?”

  Barrett knew she was busted. “Denver.”

  “Barrett.”

  “Kelly.”

  “Barrett Elizabeth, do not come here.”

  “See what I mean, about the name thing? You sound a lot more scary than if you’d said Bambi Jane.” Barrett tried to steer the conversation in the right direction, but Kelly wouldn’t let her.

  “I’m fine. I’m just having a rough night. There’s no need for you to come here.”

  “Maybe I want to,” Barrett replied, her voice quiet and a bit seductive, if she heard herself correctly.

  “I don’t need you here.”

  “Liar.” There was silence on the line. “I can come,” Barrett said quietly, grimacing as if she were expecting to be hit over the head. As if someone could knock some sense into her.

  “I appreciate that, but I don’t need you to.”

  “Maybe I need to.”

  “I need to get through this. Having you come to my rescue every time doesn’t do me or you any good.”

  “I’m just trying to help.”

  “Just the fact that for the past twenty minutes you’ve talked to me when you could have been sleeping tells me…I know you care, Barrett. I know you want to help. But I’m fine, really. Talking with you helped me put things into perspective.”

  “All right then,” Barrett said after a long pause. “What are you planning to do tomorrow? Or should I say today?”

  “I’m going to hang up, pull the covers up to my chin, and go back to sleep. Something you need to do as well. I don’t know what I’m going to do the rest of the day. I’ll play it by ear. What about you?”

  “Well, as much as I’d like nothing better to do than play it by ear, I have a boatload of work on my desk. And I didn’t say that to make you feel bad about waking me up,” she added quickly. “Seriously, Kelly, you can call me anytime. I’ll always answer. I’ll always have time for you.”

  “Good night, Barrett,” Kelly said just before she pushed the end button on the face of her phone. She knew Barrett would never hang up so she did.

  Why did she feel like she’d severed more than just the telephone connection? She’d been completely pa
nicked, and the instant she heard Barrett’s voice coming through the phone she began to calm down. Barrett had a way of talking to her. It didn’t matter what she said. It was the sound of her voice, the cadence of the words, the mere fact that she was talking to her. Barrett understood what she was going through and knew when to use her sense of humor to break the tension without embarrassing her.

  Once fiercely independent and emotionally strong, she was now suspicious of everything and everyone around her. The woman who returned from the jungle wasn’t the woman who entered it. Once outgoing and trusting, she was now serious and cautious. Her goals in life used to be to provide care to the unfortunate, but now it was all she could do to get through every day.

  Kelly got up, walked to the kitchen, and got a bottle of water from the fridge. On her way back, she started to turn off the lights that she’d turned on earlier but stopped. She thought about what Barrett had said about sleeping with the lights on and decided to give it a try. Who knew? Maybe that would work. Barrett said she was no longer afraid of the dark. That day couldn’t come soon enough for her.

  She got back into bed, pulled the covers up, and closed her eyes. The sense of dread and panic earlier when she woke started in the pit of her chest and threatened to consume her again. “Stop it,” she said out loud. Instead of counting sheep to fall asleep, she thought of Barrett.

  She thought of how wonderful she looked waiting for her at the airport, how ragged she looked after several days at the hospital, how she looked exhausted from being by her side the entire time. How she looked standing in the doorway of her hotel room and when she held her in her arms after her first nightmare. The curve of her breast was inches from her mouth, her nipple within touching distance.

  Kelly sat up and tossed off the covers, suddenly hot. “What in the hell am I thinking?” she asked, fanning herself. Jesus, Kelly, get a grip. There was nothing sexual about our physical proximity to each other so why am I thinking there was? Barrett was always…had never…had never even tried…She stumbled to find the right words. She lay back down and stared at the ceiling.

  “God. I’m even more messed up than I thought I was.”

  Chapter Twenty

  “The hospital called and asked me to come in to talk about my job.”

  “And how did that go?” Dr. Hinton asked, her voice noncommittal yet encouraging. Kelly had been seeing her twice a week through Skype since she came home and felt ready to decrease the frequency of their sessions. This was the first time she’d talked with her in over a week.

  “It was good actually. They said that my failure to return to work,” Kelly emphasized the phrase with air quotes, “wasn’t my fault and because of that they’d reinstate me when I was ready to come back.”

  “And how do you feel about that?’

  “Relieved.”

  “But…”

  “But I don’t know if I can.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “Try. You don’t have to come up with the perfect words. Just say what you think, what’s on your mind. We’ll figure out the right phrasing.”

  “It sounds kind of silly.” Dr. Hinton looked at her with an expression Kelly had come to know quite well: that nothing, no feeling was silly, no comment stupid if it was hers.

  “Sorry,” she said, “wrong choice of words. I don’t want to be the subject of everybody’s comments, whispers, and pointing. I don’t want people to look at me and say that’s the nurse that was kidnapped and held in the jungle for two years and came out with a baby. I don’t want to have to deal with their looks of pity and condemnation.”

  “Why do you use the word condemnation?”

  “Because how stupid of me was it to go to a place where I put my life in danger? I mean I could have gone and helped in any inner-city clinic.”

  “And wouldn’t your life be in danger there?” Dr. Hinton asked.

  “Not nearly as much as where I went.”

  “And what about the level of care you provide in the inner city versus what you did in Columbia?”

  “Drastically different.”

  “And do you think those people you’re concerned with having that viewpoint of you and your actions…do any of those people participate or volunteer for your kind of medical mission?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Do they have any idea what your patients need and what you give them that no one else will?”

  “No.” Kelly was starting to understand where Dr. Hinton was going with this and told her so. “That these people…that they haven’t walked a mile in my shoes, so who are they to judge.”

  “Actually, I was thinking more along the lines that they haven’t even put their foot in your shoes.”

  “You’re right.” She liked Dr. Hinton’s view.

  “Okay. We can come back to that. “Why else do you think you’re not ready?”

  “My entire perspective of the world has changed. I’m a very different person than I was before.”

  “In what way?”

  They’d talked about this particular viewpoint often during their discussions, and each time Kelly came away with more clarity.

  “I see the world differently. What I think is important is different. I’m far less tolerant of crap and bullshit that’s really not a big deal. I’m afraid that attitude will come across to my patients.”

  “It might. But then again, do you think that gives you a different perspective on their care. What they’re going through? What their families are going through?”

  “I suppose.”

  “You don’t sound very sure.”

  “I’m not. I just don’t know if it would translate into my actions.”

  “And if it did?”

  “It would make me a better nurse. I’d be more caring and compassionate toward everyone.”

  “And if it didn’t?”

  “It would make me a terrible nurse, because I wouldn’t care. I might treat someone coming in to the ER because they did something stupid, disregarded some safety or just common-sense thing differently than if they’d come in as a victim.”

  “Possibly,” Dr. Hinton said. “And if you turned out to be that type of nurse, the nurse you don’t want to be, what would you do?”

  “I’d quit. I’d find something else.”

  “But if you didn’t?”

  “Then I’d continue to do what I love.”

  “The choice is yours, Kelly. We’ve always talked about that. You’ve said before that it’s important to you that you regain control of your life. If you assume you’ll be a bad nurse and don’t do anything to either prove it or disprove it, is that taking control?”

  “No.” It was abdicating control.

  “So you’re not sure if you want to return to work because of people who have no reference point to your life and because you’re afraid you might have lost your compassion. What else?”

  “I’ll have a child now, or I will soon. I think it’s important that I bond with her.”

  “Are you afraid you won’t?” She held her hand up to stop Kelly from answering. “Before you answer that, don’t lie to yourself.”

  “Yes, I am. I’m afraid that every time I look at her I’ll see The Colonel, the brutality, the pain.”

  “That’s understandable. Look at yourself, right now this instant. Look at your hands.” Even though their appointment was through Skype, their cameras were placed so they could see each other’s full body.

  Kelly glanced down and saw that her hands were on her stomach, almost forming a protective cocoon around her baby.

  “That’s right,” Dr Hinton said. “You’re protecting your baby right now. If you didn’t want this child, if you didn’t love this child you wouldn’t be doing that. You refer to her as if she was a person, not as an ‘it’ when you talk about her. So we’ll come back to that too. Have you heard from Barrett?”

  Just the mere mention of her name made Kelly’s pulse spike. “No
, I haven’t.” They’d agreed not to talk everyday, at Kelly’s request.

  “At the risk of sounding like a shrink, how does that make you feel?”

  Kelly chuckled. Dr. Hinton always laid it out on the table. She called it what it was, and Kelly didn’t have to think about the underlying meaning in her words or her questions.

  “I think it sucks. I miss her. I miss talking to her. I miss her sense of humor, her pragmatism. The way she approaches a problem and diagrams a solution. The way she thinks. I miss knowing what’s going on in her life, what she’s done every day.”

  Her answers didn’t seem to surprise Dr. Hinton. Actually, she thought she detected a slight nod and she said, “And…”

  “And I miss talking to her about what I did that day. How I was able to go to the grocery store and only freak out three times instead of five. How almost every light in the house is on when I go to bed and not every one. How I had a terrible craving for chocolate-chip ice cream after dark, and I was actually able to get up and go to the Quick Mart and get some.” Kelly remembered the incident clearly and was proud of herself for what she’d accomplished. Prior to that she wouldn’t go anywhere after the sun went down.

  “And why do you want to share it with her?”

  “Because she understands. She knows what it’s like. She knows that minor accomplishments that other people would think are ridiculous are major steps in my recovery. She doesn’t judge me or make me feel ridiculous because I was finally able to make eye contact with a complete stranger. Because I just want to,” she added, almost wistfully.

  “How about your friends? What’s been happening with them since we spoke last?”

  “About the same. One of them even went so far as to ask me if it was too late to have an abortion. My God, I’m seven months pregnant. What a stupid question. This baby is real. She moves and reacts to what I react to. She lets me know what she likes and what she doesn’t. She lets me know when she’s ready to get up and when she’s not ready to go to sleep. She can’t see past the fact that this child was conceived in rape, in a horrible, horrible way. I know she cares for me and wants the best for me, but what she thinks is best for me isn’t. And I can’t get her to understand that.”